


νοσταλγία Freydis' PoV

by Luce_cm



Series: νοσταλγία [3]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Hades and Persephone (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore), Mythology References
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:07:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28367388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luce_cm/pseuds/Luce_cm
Summary: You can sum this up as a canon divergence from 5x03, from Freydis PoV, with the purpose of explaining why Ivar has some of the ideas he has (as a result of their interaction) and why she is the way she is in the story. I wanted to take a peek into Freydis’ head, mainly because the Freydis of the show is not exactly the Freydis I wrote in νοσταλγία. I wanted to explore the night she is freed, and how/why she finds herself in Kattegat after everything that happens, and why she is the way she is, why she believes in what she believes in. I suck at summaries, I know, sorry
Relationships: Hvitserk & Ivar (Vikings), Ivar & Ubbe (Vikings), Ivar (Vikings)/Reader, Ivar (Vikings)/You
Series: νοσταλγία [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2076336
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	1. "Freydis."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You can sum this up as a canon divergence from 5x03, from Freydis PoV, with the purpose of explaining why Ivar has some of the ideas he has (as a result of their interaction) and why she is the way she is in the story. I wanted to take a peek into Freydis’ head, mainly because the Freydis of the show is not exactly the Freydis I wrote in νοσταλγία. I wanted to explore the night she is freed, and how/why she finds herself in Kattegat after everything that happens, and why she is the way she is, why she believes in what she believes in. I suck at summaries, I know, sorry

They grab her by the back of her neck, hiss some words she doesn’t hear. She drops the jug she was carrying, pale eyes remaining on the spilled milk and watching it be wasted on this ungrateful ground.

They push her, shove her, to make her start walking. She does. Before long she stands surrounded by walls made of stone, and before a man made of fury.

The man at her side is dismissed by the son of Ragnar, and she watches him leave out of the corner of her eye, imagining for a second a world where she can be the one to stand tall and sentence the unworthy to die.

But the Gods didn’t will it that way, they willed it so that she is the unworthy one, tasked with rising above her pain, above her darkness.

“Slave,” He greets, and the word, the reminder, it brings forth so many memories to the front of her mind, so many scars seem to ache with the syllables of the word. Still, she remains quiet and unmoving, she thinks she even offers a calm smile, knowing she has nothing to fear. It seems to intrigue him, she notices. “You do not seem…afraid of me.”

“No,” She replies after a few moments of silence, almost certain he gave her permission to speak. “I have no reason to.”

“You know who I am.” He states, and she nods.

“You are Ivar,” Is all she says. His head cocks to the side, a question about to leave his lips, and with a pit of fear -a fear she knows she shouldn’t feel- on her stomach she adds, “Ivar the Boneless.”

She almost flinches when he lifts his hand to his lips, sure the order to force her into obedience after speaking without being allowed to is to come, but the man only looks at her, blue eyes curious and calculating.

“We are expecting to be attacked by the Saxons, they have a large army outside of these walls,” He explains, and she knows, she knows like she knows the scars on her skin, what he will ask out of her. “We must ask the Gods for help. Would you be…willing to offer yourself as a sacrifice?”

He asks her to respond, he asks her what she ought to do, like it’s a choice, like people like her have a choice to make.

Her lips part, her breath shakes out of her lungs, her hands tremble. They cannot ask her to make choices, if…if she is free to choose one thing, then…

As her breath quickens, as her chest heaves, she feels the familiar weight of the pendant on her neck, and she is reminded of why she ought to feel no fear.

So she brings herself back under her own control and nods, “I would be honored to give myself to the Gods.”

“You are not afraid.” He states in response, but it is a question.

“I have always known…” Her breath falters, but not her resolve, so she straightens her shoulders, meets his eyes with certainty, “I have always known that pain is the Gods’ gift to us.

She looks down at hands roughened by labor and pain, and is resolute when she continues,

“‘To live is to suffer’,” She quotes, the woman who told her that long dead by now, “It all leads us to Ragnarok, it all leads us to…pain, before and after the wolf breaks free. Pain is a mark of the Gods. And those who embrace the pain, those who are born in it, that live in it,” Her eyes look at nothing, nothing but the memories, the snarling faces, the hurting hands, the broken pieces. “Those are chosen by the Gods themselves.”

Her gaze returns to the man sitting in the makeshift throne, and she is startled by the gasp that leaves parted lips, the unbridled hope she sees shining in wide blue eyes.

“Come closer,” He whispers, and she does, with no fear. His eyes search hers, with a desperation she scarcely saw before in someone not a slave, “What…what do you-…? I don’t understand.”

“I know who you are, what you are; so I know you understand,” She offers a small smile, “I know you understand that some of us are chosen by the Gods themselves to be pushed to the ground, to be broken, to…suffer.”

“Chosen.” He repeats, and his voice shakes.

Hers does not.

“We are chosen, pain is a mark of the favor of the Gods. We are to endure, we are to rise above it, we are to survive, we are to accept the Gods’ gift.”

“I…”

“Those who endure, are rewarded,” She straightens her back, offers a smile cold but true as she raises her chin for what feels like the first time, “I am willing to be the sacrifice. And may Freyja reward me in the life after this one.”

But he shakes his head. Barely at first, as if enthralled, as if shaken, but when she meets his eyes with what is certain to be shock and surprise written all over her features, he takes a deep breath and finds his voice.

“You are free to go.”

“But…”

“You…” He frowns, his eyes fall from hers, look at nothing. She knows that look. But he shakes himself off it before long, and meets her gaze again, “You are a free woman now.”

She learns that night, that being free is a new kind of pain.

They leave her alone and unbound and _alone_ , and she does not know what to do. For a time, she is thrilled in the newfound freedom, terrifying and suffocating as it is, laughing like a madwoman until her throat goes raw, convinced that this is the Gods’ reward for a life of pain, for enduring, for understanding their will. But the night darkens and she has nowhere to go, and her laugh turns into manic sobs even as she covers her mouth, the shadows chase her lonely form even if she is unbound.

They don’t talk about the loneliness of freedom, she realizes numbly in the morning, dress dirtied and hair wild as she sits on the ground, back resting against one of the stone homes of the city. They don’t talk about how terrifying it is to be left alone with your thoughts when you know you are free to do what you will, what those thoughts tell you to.

Her thoughts tell her she wants to burn the city to the ground and also explore every crevice of it, she wants to let the slaves feel the same freedom as her but she also wants to be on the other end of the terrified stare of a desperate thrall, she wants to…she wants to…she _wants_.

She wants, and she has wanted for so long; but they cannot ask her to decide, they cannot tell her now she has choices to make. She is scared, and the fear that runs through her veins like Thor’s lightning is a new kind that she has never felt before.

Almost twenty years they have told her to want for nothing, that a slave ought to never want. And now she can admit to having wants, and hopes, and…and now the world is at the tips of her fingers and if she just _reaches…_

But she is petrified, petrified and alone and fearful.

She wonders if this is but another kind of suffering to endure, this _freedom_.

____

She has learned, in these months of freedom, many new things. She has learned the taste of some strange dried fruits she stole from a merchant; she has learned working while a free woman feels differently than when working as a thrall even if it is the same routine; she has learned the possibility of choosing never stops being suffocating.

She has learned she is lacking many things. She is lacking a name, having long forgotten it and the people that knew it have been dead for even longer; she is lacking anything but the old red and green dress she wore the night she was freed; she is lacking the certainty being bound to servitude gave her.

A ghost has taken her place since that night, she thinks. Or maybe freedom feels like this. This wandering, this fear, this uncertainty.

A ghost that walks the streets, a ghost that still cries during the night clutching a worn pendant, a ghost that, when the ambitions of the sons of Ragnar take them elsewhere, follows.

Because she has also learned that she is utterly and unbearably afraid of being left _alone_.

An old woman with runes on her skin finds her wandering the streets one morning, the dawn breaking over the distant waves of the city that now has a new King. She smiles at her, like she sees her, like she understands.

“What is your name?” The woman asks, but all she can do is shake her head, eyes wide.

“I don’t know.” She doesn’t know many things.

And when the woman invites her to follow, she does, because she doesn’t want to be left alone but also because she can, because she wants to, because she can choose to.

So before long she sits in front of the fire and a mangy black cat purrs in her lap, the woman’s eyes piercing and calming as they study her.

“You have a home here, if you wish it so,” The old woman says, “But you ought to have a name, child. What should we call you?”

She grabs onto the pendant hanging from her neck, she thinks of the tales she was told, she hears the memories of whispered prayers.

And she chooses.

“Freydis.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Btw, her views on pain and what the purpose of life is, or life being suffering and all, it was very much inspired on Edith Hamilton’s insight on Norse mythology and its effect on VIkings and their way of life/worldview; all of it, of course, proyected into Freydis through the very poor vector that is my writing lol


	2. "For her."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, this takes place mainly during chapter 23 (24 on AO3), and it gives a…twist to the tale the main story tells. Like in my first Ivar PoV, I chose a line or aspect of the character and did my best in being annoying with it along the chapter. With Ivar it was the whole watching thing, with Freydis, it’s the ‘I did it for you’ bs.

Your hand is on her shoulder, murmured goodnights as you promise to meet with her tomorrow. Freydis watches you leave, and turns her eyes to the King.

She made sure he’d be told of what the Arab merchant offered the Queen, and as she watches you disappear amongst the people, she lets herself walk to the King.

Freydis notices, as he focuses on her, that his eyes are so alike yours when you first arrived in Kattegat. A mix of curiosity and distrust.

She lays a hand on his shoulder, and her voice is a whisper on his ear as she speaks of how you seem to be missing from the feast.

If she closes her eyes, she can picture another life, where it is her the one at his side, and it is her voice inside his head, her whispers by his ear, her lies he believes.

But her eyes open, and where she expects fury and unbridled rage, she sees hesitation, she sees _fear._

He looks for you in the room, as if for a moment he refuses to believe her. Even when he doesn’t find you, even as he stands unsteadily -in what she feels has nothing to do with the iron around his legs but with the parted lips and wide eyes- and calls out your name; he doesn’t rage, he doesn’t turn cold and cruel, and it makes Freydis falter.

The ruckus of the feast dies down slowly but surely, as the King’s eyes search for his wife. When he notices their eyes on him, their attention on his weakness, King Ivar offers a smile, and a gesture of his arm that speaks of everything but nonchalance.

“Carry on,” The King orders, a smile that trembles on his lips because their eyes don’t stop staring, and the voices start whispering. What in any other man would be a manic chuckle leaves his lips, “Carry on!”

The eyes divert, the voices quieten, and even if hesitation still permeates the air, the feast goes on.

His gaze finds hers and it is a moment as long as a breath where his mask slips, his expression falls. She sees it written in his eyes, the true fear that _she’s gone_.

It would be easy, to walk closer and whisper the right words, she has before and certainly can do so again. It would be easy, to promise him you’ve betrayed him, it certainly would give her -and Kattegat- more stable ground to stand on, if the Queen were dead or broken.

_You’re twirling with a red dress flowing around you, a crown on your head and a smile on your lips, and Freydis finds herself smiling back, even if it is not expected of her, even if no one is looking, even if she is not trying to prove anything with that smile._

_And as if you feel her eyes on you, you stop and extend a hand, and embrace her like she is a friend, and let the guilt of being happy in circumstances like these shine in your eyes like she can be trusted, and ask her to dance like all there is to both your lives is the music that rattles in her chest._

Freydis swallows past a dry throat, and offers, “Maybe the Queen retired to your quarters. She did mention feeling unwell.”

A lie, but those come easy. The instinct to protect you does not, but she still acts upon it.

And when it is whispered that you were indeed in your room, a part of her uncoils and sighs in relief, but another part of her, a darker and more twisted part of her realizes she no longer is in control, and it scares her.

____

Sometimes, when Freydis looks at her own reflection -beautiful, lovely, perfect, they say- and sees the strain in her eyes -cruel, hungry, cold, that they don’t say-, she wonders about what makes a monster.

She has seen monstrous men, both in looks and in actions. Kattegat itself is ruled by a monstrous man. But she doesn’t know what makes a monster, what makes the humanity die.

Because all the men she has met -and faced, and been at the mercy of, and suffered at the hands of- still held humanity to them, she knows it. Her last master, a cruel and sadistic man that delighted himself in making her cry in pain and beg for him to stop, he loved his hunting dogs more than he loved anything, she saw him refuse meals for himself so they wouldn’t go hungry.

Even the King, whom she saw pour melted gold over the mouth of a captured Christian and laugh as the man died horribly, she has seen him falter when the woman some say has bewitched him is in distress, she has seen him stand tall and proud when you are at his side.

So, a monster…a monster she has never met.

Everyone has a monstrous side, even the best of us, Freydis gathers. But we also have something that keeps us human, that keeps us from being nothing but animals.

 _Your eyes certain on hers, your touch grounding and welcoming and_ warm _as you whisper, “You were never, and never will be, an animal, Freydis.”_

Maybe having something to love other than ourselves keeps us from being nothing but monsters, from beasts.

Your arm intertwines with her own as you both walk down familiar streets, and with a knot in her stomach Freydis thinks that maybe, in the end, a monster is the thing that with so much to love, with someone to love them; chooses betrayal, chooses cruelty.

Chooses to go behind the back of the woman that gave her nothing but understanding and compassion, nothing but softness and certainty. Chooses to make her suffer.

She watches the tears that form in your eyes at the sight of those corpses, the trembling hand that covers your mouth, as if to prevent the scream stubborn lips still will not let pass.

And she feels a pang of something.

Of pain, of sadness. Of regret.

Someone that doesn’t know any better would say she shouldn’t have gone to those merchants, told them tales about the poor maiden that was stolen from her mother’s side by a monstrous king, now at the mercy of a man that has none, forced to be his wife and tortured by his cruel ways; shouldn’t have begged them with fake tears in her eyes for them to offer you an escape, but…she was doing that for you. Freydis knows you want to leave this place, to leave its king; she was testing the waters to see if you would make the choice to do so. She did this for you.

That’s what she tries telling herself, at least.

Admitting she tested the waters to see what truly happens behind closed doors, to find out how much of what the whispers say is true, to understand and control the outcome of this; it would…it would mean she is as much a monster as she sees looking back at her on her worst days.

Because Freydis has come to understand the King, in these past months. Something she never thought would happen, to be honest.

But she does understand, at least partly.

She has been witness to your seemingly endless softness, has been on the other end of your stubborn gentleness, has had you smile at her in that true and warm way of yours and…Gods, she realizes why Ivar the Boneless stopped a war in your name.

Since growing close to you, since earning your trust -or a portion of it-, she has been witness many times to how you and the King interact, in this strange dance of daring the other to cave first, in this way you two understand each other with only a look. She has been witness to how easily you disarm Ivar, to how he lingers on your smiles, to how he loses tension at the sound of your laughter.

She has also seen you soften your smile when you look at him, as if you allow him to see a truth of you no others -not even her- can be witnesses to; she has heard your voice soften when speaking to him; she has noticed the way your eyes fill with something unnamable when he says your name.

And it would be easy, if soft and gentle and _good_ were all that you were. It would make…understanding -controlling- you easier, it would help her know what will happen, how to prepare for it.

But it isn’t just that, is it? It’s softness with iron underneath, it’s gritted teeth and arrogant taunts, it’s a woman that walks like she was born to have men like Ivar the Boneless start wars in her name.

Because just as she has witnessed your softness, your weakness, your mercy; she has witnessed the iron that let you survive all those fires the Christians lit. More than once she has found herself on the other end of the stare of a woman that carved out a heart from a man’s chest with nothing but words and caresses, of a woman that, like the night when you ordered her to never speak again of you playing with the King’s heart, would kill and die to protect those she deems hers.

She sees you in pain before those hanging corpses, and realizing she is partly the cause of it makes her heart hurt deep in her chest.

You ask why she brought you here.

 _To test you,_ is the truth she cannot bring herself to speak.

 _To prove to you the King can and will hurt you_ , is a nobler truth, but it still holds darkness.

 _To see for myself how truly bound to each other you are; to see if you would leave him, just like last night I wanted to see if he would kill you;_ that would be a more honest truth, that would be what you deserve.

But she cannot give you what you deserve, because she didn’t get what she wanted. Freydis didn’t get any answers.

Because when Ivar was told of the Arab men’s plans to help the Queen escape, he looked for you before reacting; because when she told him you had disappeared from the feast, the ground didn’t shake with the march of an army out in search of you; because a morning has dawned after a night when the King believed his wife could have betrayed him and she still lives.

Because when you were offered a piece of home, a taste of nostalgia, you smiled in thanks and toasted to a past long gone, and stayed at a madman’s side; because when he went out to find you with all his fury and all his venom, you still straightened your back and smiled at his -your?- people come morning; because you see the evidence of Ivar’s cruelty hanging before you, and you do not cower, you do not fear.

It is all uncertainties, uneven ground. Freydis does not know how to play on uneven ground, and she cannot help the pull of something -of ambition, of darkness, of coldness-, that makes her want to understand the ways of the game, if she cannot partake in playing.

She is not stupid enough to try and go against the King. He set her free, and she wasn’t lying when she told him that the Gods would one day reward him. As to whether that reward is a soft-hearted but iron-willed witch from a realm of warmth and flowers, she does not know.

And she is not heartless enough to intend to harm you. She understands why Ivar stopped a war for you, she understands why that Greek man challenged an empire in your name. She has learned to care for you, to see a friend in you, something more than the foreign witch they brought with the mark of shackles on her wrists.

So, to answer your question of why you bring her here, she promises lies of only wanting to be a good friend to you. And, in return for you believing them, she pretends to believe you do not recognize those faces.

____

“You are a strange one, you know.” Valdís states without prompting, head tilted to the side as she looks at Freydis with a distrust she was once used to. Not so much anymore, now that she knows what it feels like to be loved and embraced and _trusted_.

“I don’t know what you mean, I’m afraid.”

Valdís hums thoughtfully, before taking a seat in front of Freydis.

“You could have had her killed, because of your stupid games.”

It is at the harsh tone, at the accusation, that Freydis tenses, “If you try implying that-…”

The shieldmaiden smiles, smiles in a way that tells Freydis she is being threatened without a word, and makes her fall silent, if only to not give anything more away.

“I don’t imply. I don’t play games, unlike both of you,” The muscular woman leans forward, “I promise you, if not out of loyalty for Kattegat, out of love for her, that if you put her in danger again, if you plot against her a-…”

She knows what the end of her sentence will be, she knows it because in Valdís’ clear eyes shines the same determination that she sees in herself sometimes. That drive to protect, that recklessness that comes about keeping those you love safe.

And all she did, she did out of love. All she did, she did for you.

“I was trying to protect her, to set her free.” Freydis interrupts, certain and unwavering. If she repeats it enough, maybe she will believe it too, and the pain will stop.

Judging by the shieldmaiden’s stern and cold look, she doesn’t believe her. Judging by the shaking of her hands, the knot at her throat, Freydis doesn’t believe herself either.

But instead of saying anything else, the other woman stands up. It is skittish and pathetic anxiety that makes Freydis call out for the blonde shieldmaiden again before she leaves her behind.

“Will you tell her?”

“No, it would hurt her. She trusts you, loves you even. If I wanted to hurt her, I would have done what you did,” Valdís spits back, bitter and resentful. After a moment, the shieldmaiden twirls one of her braids between her thumb and forefinger, turning around with a smirk, and states, “If I wanted to hurt you, I’d tell the King.”

But she doesnt fear Ivar’s wrath. A small and regretful part of her does fear losing you, though. So she negotiates,

“And in exchange for your silence…”

She leaves the words hanging between them, and the expression in Valdís’ face is skeptic, distrusting, but she still sighs, and steps closer.

“I only want one truth,” Pale eyes search Freydis’, and she finds herself frozen on the spot. Looking away would mean defeat, would mean Valdís is right about how wrong what she did was, would mean she played a game and forgot it was people and not pawns. So, she meets her gaze, and she could swear the shieldmaiden’s voice softens when she asks, “Do you want to be in her place, is that it? Is it your ambition to be Queen of Kattegat?”

Freydis shakes her head, “For a woman like me, the path to the throne ends in death.”

Valdís’ eyebrows raise, but it seems she accepts her words. Her voice is low when she insists,

“Then _why_?”

“I…everything is confusing. S-She makes everything stop making sense. I want to…to understand.”

“To control.”

She shrugs, “Maybe.”

“You needn’t understand or control anything other than yourself, Freydis,” Valdís shakes her head, as if in disbelief, “What you did, I-…”

“I did it-…”

“Let me guess…” The other woman rolls her eyes, but she pushes on.

“For her.” Freydis sentences, resolute. Silence follows the two words, and neither woman lets herself back down.

Valdís eyes are cold and brimming with anger, with disgust. She knows that stare, has been at the other end of it many times before. Few are the fools that look at a slave with trust, with love.

The shieldmaiden only advises, “Careful, Freydis. You are too good of a liar; I fear you are starting to believe your own lies.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. All I’m saying is: you should have seen this coming. Btw, just to make it clear: I love the character of Freydis, if only out of spite because of how the writing treated her in the show. I just like making characters that are good at being conniving little shits connive like little shits.
> 
> I also like writing characters in the throes of bi panic. Hence, this whole thing. Cause, not-so-implied-as-it-is-right-there Freydis/Reader, tho (mainly bc I’m probably the only one to ship it) unrequited/onesided.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I would love to hear your thoughts on this! Thank you lovelies! <3


	3. "I love her."

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What goes through her head from 30 to 33 approximately, what makes her make the very stupid choices she makes, and what the consequences of those stupid choices end up being. I suck at summaries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mentioned this before (I think), but the way I write Freydis is as someone very similar to Ivar in three main things: 1- she needs to feel in control, she feels powerful when she is in control of something/someone; 2- she hasn’t had much love, and when she has someone to love/that loves her, she will cling to them (branching into possessiveness/jealousy); 3- she is terrified of being alone, of having no one at her side or nothing to hold on to.
> 
> If you keep this in mind, especially in this order, it gets easier to read through this absolute fucking mess of a chapter. Thank you, and I’m sorry.

“That is new.” She tells you, and your gaze lowers to the trinket, the fingers of your opposite hand tracing over the gold snake wrapped around your wrist. There’s a softness in your gaze when you admire the bracelet that makes something in her stomach tighten.

“A gift,” You smile, before chuckling to yourself and meeting Freydis’ gaze with an edge of mirth, of secrecy, “A shackle, maybe.”

“That you willingly wear.” She reminds you. You only shrug, and it unsettles her.

“We choose what we call chains, what we call freedom.”

“Those aren’t your words.”

“They are someone else’s, true. Someone wiser than me,” You knock your shoulder with hers, lighthearted even if it feels with each passing moment you’re burying her further underground. “I don’t have all the answers, Freydis, even if I pretend I do.”

She offers a smile that feels like a lie, that _is_ one; and watches dazedly as your attention is diverted to Valdís when she walks in, Freydis’ eyes following you as you stand up and embrace the shieldmaiden who greets you with a smile and a murmur of your name.

She remembers when your name was a secret to so many, when almost no one dared get close to the witch and you shunned those who did with distrusting eyes and biting words.

She remembers when this small home was her safe haven, where everything was predictable and understandable and _hers_. Before they brought a witch from a foreign land and had her wreak havoc with easy smiles and an accented voice, and took from Freydis all the certainty of nothing being able to breach what she called hers.

She remembers when Kattegat, her home, was predictable and understandable. Before a small Greek woman stood tall in ground not hers and claimed it without meaning to, and took from Freydis all the certainty of knowing how the people, the city, moved and breathed.

She remembers when the King was predictable, in all his unpredictability, in all his chaos. Before she stood before two thrones and watched you offer Ivar a smile that spoke of reluctant affection and something more dangerous than that, and in the softness you drew out of the King took from Freydis all the certainty of knowing what he was capable of.

She has tried making sense of the world, has tried returning to her control over what happened, has tried making everything predictable again.

It was predictable that, when told his wife had betrayed him, the King would let go of any pretense and kill or break you. But he didn’t.

It was predictable that, when offered a chance of a life without the man that imprisoned you, you would let go of any foolish hope for happiness and leave him behind. But you didn’t.

It was predictable that, when a witness to the unraveling of it all, Freydis would stand aside and let Ivar believe you’d left him even though she knew better. But she didn’t.

And since she was a child, Freydis has known control in bite-sized pieces that satiate her for a while and then leave her hollow. Set up a girl in another life she may have called her big sister to be punished by their mother for something she hadn’t done, stealing from a fellow thrall and watching her accuse another. She has learned to keep herself from unraveling by holding on to control.

Until you. Because you made everything unpredictable and complicated, and you took control from her with nothing but a quirk of your mouth.

Now she looks up at Ivar’s eyes and words continue to drip from her lips like poison, and it is yet another game, but she knows she could have played with anyone else.

 _I love her._ She repeats it, so many times it irks him. But she needs him to know, she needs to remind herself.

Monsters love nothing. She loves, so this isn’t the act of a monster.

“I…it pains me to see her suffer.” She finishes, and there’s a tell in the King’s posture, a stubbornness mixed with apprehension.

She could have played with anyone else, yes, but since she was a child Freydis has known love in dirtied and sullied scraps that fall through her fingers like sand. The rough touch of a thrall that promises her they will one day be happy together as he forces himself inside her, the smile in the youngest child of her master as she finishes braiding her hair. She has learned to survive on lies instead of love.

Until you. Because you looked into her eyes and saw everything and let her see everything in turn, and yet you still smiled and held her hand and called her a friend.

“But I have held her as she cried, and I have comforted her as she tells me how she doesn’t belong at the side of a monster.”

And it may have started as a game, but it isn’t anymore. Because she sees the pain in his eyes when she tells him you think him a monster, and it feels like water on dry and cracked lips.

She knows it is dangerous, and stupid, and careless; to hurt a man that would not hesitate to kill her for a lesser offense, but she cannot stop, she finds herself reveling in torturing him.

“But you do not care to be called a beast, a monster, do you? One such as you knows better than to expect love, I suppose.”

Because in her own way, she wants to make him pay. For taking away her certainty by letting your softness change him, for taking away her control by letting you barrel into her world, for taking away the woman she loves with but a touch of his hand on yours.

____

He finds her, of course he does. And she sees the unbridled rage, the desire to hurt her in his eyes, she hears it in the way he grunts out _you_ when he sees her standing there.

But she doesn’t move. No man, not even Ivar the Boneless, can make her fear.

His hand is keeping her from breathing, and for a small moment Freydis thinks this is how she dies, alone and surrounded by her lies.

She still opens her eyes, she still forces the words past her lips.

“Kill me then.” She dares, she dares him to lose everything, to let her _win_.

But he lets her go, and she remains on the ground, taking grateful gulps of air, as the King brings himself back up to his feet.

She cannot help but dwell on it, on the fact that he trusted you. Whatever you told him, whatever you did, gave him the certainty her words were a lie, even if he was so ready to believe them to be true when she spoke them. She cannot help but wonder if maybe the rumors were true, she cannot help but think maybe you did bewitch Ivar.

But men call it bewitching, she reminds herself, they call it bewitching, they call it a trick, they blame women for it. Women call it by what it is: love.

And he leaves her alone in that home with the promise, “She’s the reason you are alive, the only one who would miss a slave. And you _betrayed_ _her_.”

Ever since she was a child, Freydis has had to be used to being alone, even if it pained her and made her chest tighten and made her _fear_. A whisper of a name she has long since forgotten before they drag her away and cut her hair and start calling her _slave_ , the feeling of being free and realizing only now that they are gone that the chains had become companions that never left her alone. She has learned to keep herself from remembering what being alone feels and so has learned to forget how much she fears it.

Until you. Because you needed her and you trusted her, and you took her hand and it felt like a promise, it felt _safe_.

____

She walks into the great hall and, as always, her eyes look for you before doing anything else.

Familiar, and painfully predictable, what she finds. She finds you in your usual place sitting at Ivar’s side, she finds the usual sight of your hand in his, she finds the familiar melody of your laugh.

It is not familiar, but it is something she should have predicted, the way Ivar tilts your head to him and kisses you, taking your smile and greedily tasting it against his own lips, taking your softness and feeling it in the loving touch of your hand on his cheek.

And Freydis stands there, hollow and cold and _alone_ , as you smile brightly up at him, as you bring him close again and kiss him again, as your words echo in her head _betrayal isn’t love, Freydis, trust is._

Her eyes keep finding you throughout the night, each time she hears your laugh echo through the hall, each time she hears someone calls out your name in greeting, each time she hears her heart beat painfully in her chest.

And the feast is dying out when she finds you for the last time, your lips pulled into a soft smile and your eyes closed in content, body pliant and relaxed leaning against Ivar’s.

Freydis lifts her eyes to the King, and finds him looking at her, a dark pride shining in his eyes, a cruel delight that she can’t blame him for. He brings you closer, and presses a kiss against your hair, and he has you, and he _won_.

____

She had no choice but to let you know. Ivar didn’t tell you, and Freydis isn’t sure if she ought to call it a mercy or yet another act of cruelty, but he didn’t tell you it was her the one that put those words in his head.

And now he is gone, and you still smile at her like you love her, and she has no choice but to let you know.

Freydis tries making you see why this was the smart choice, why you should be thanking her, why this isn’t a betrayal, but…Gods, she knows she is lying, and she tastes the ash in her tongue as she does.

You are moving away from her, trying to leave her behind and she grabs on to you, feeling the cold of the snake bracelet on your wrist burning her. She still holds on.

“Get your hand off me, _now_.” You order.

She feels the words slip from her lips, “You are starting to sound like _him_ , witch.”

Your breathing stops and there’s something cold, dead, in the way you look at her. Freydis’ eyes lower to your waist, where proudly a round-handled knife hangs, and she wonders, for a moment, if you are to use it, because when she lifts her gaze again back at her stares a woman that could bring the whole world to heel with nothing but a crown of flowers.

For a moment, a brief moment, she believes this is where her life ends, she believes the knife of the man that freed her in the hand of the woman that loved her will pierce her throat and make her choke with her blood and her regret.

“It is not a smart thing to attempt to insult the man I love, Freydis,” _Insulting my wife isn’t a smart thing to do_. And it hurts, it pulls her chest tight. She meets your gaze, gives away nothing, and you lean closer, “You told me the night we met that you’d once escaped death by placing the right words in the right ears. Be careful not to find death by attempting something similar.”

When you step away from her, she feels cold, colder and lonelier than she has felt in her whole life. And the door closes behind you, echoing inside Freydis’ head.

She only realizes she’s chasing after you when Valdís’ hand lays heavy on the door, keeping it shut.

“No.”

“I can-…”

“You looked her in the eye and admitted without regret to betraying her. If you want to keep your head, I suggest you give her time.”

She turns to the taller woman with biting words, “Now you are trying to help me? You threatened to kill me.”

The shieldmaiden shrugs, “There are worse fates than death. And there’s something to be said about realizing the cost of your mistakes. And you have, haven’t you?”

She shakes her head, trying to make everything make sense, trying to make the world understand.

“I love her.” She whispers, a plea, a promise, an accusation.

But you’ve left her behind, and when she finds you next there’s coldness in your voice, a coldness she only heard once before.

_You can’t change a monster’s nature._

Maybe a monster is after all what with so much to love, with someone to love them, chooses betrayal, chooses pain. Maybe a monster is what is left behind, once you peel away the love and the certainty and the control, once you leave someone utterly _alone_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She had her reasons, wrong or twisted as they were, and I tried putting them into words to the best of my abilities. I love her, and I love writing her, even if I write her doing horrible things, and even if I am horrible at writing her.
> 
> And y’know, putting the Reader instead of Ivar in the center of a love triangle thingy that involves Freydis/Ivar/Reader is so fun. I’m sorry if it sucks and it is ooc, but omg so fun to write. Freydis is a force to be reckoned with, and I I love pitting her against Ivar instead of the Reader.
> 
> I hope this was okay, and I hope it made everything at least a bit more understandable. Thank you for reading.


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